Wagging the Moondoggie, Part IV
October 1, 2009
by David McGowan
"Once on the Moon, on
the lunar
surface in the dress, in the life support system, you
couldn't see the
camera. They couldn't bend their head that far down to
see the scale
... They had no viewfinder - they had to aim by moving
their body."
Jan Lundberg, chief
designer of
the Hasselblad cameras allegedly used by the Apollo
astronauts
"They had to effectively
guess where
they were pointing the camera."
HJP Arnold, the Kodak executive who supplied the
Ektachrome film for
the missions
The
issue that most of the Moon hoax and ‘debunking’ sites spend
the
most time on, by far, is the photographic anomalies. And that,
I
suppose, is to
be expected, since with the original videotapes, telemetry
tapes and
blueprints
all having conveniently disappeared, and with most of the Moon
rocks
missing
and their legitimacy being unverifiable, there isn’t much else
in the
way of
physical evidence to examine.
Skeptics have identified a number of
problems
with NASA’s
official
photographs of the alleged Moon
landings, including; flags appearing to wave despite the lack
of
atmosphere;
non-parallel shadows, suggesting multiple light sources;
objects in the
shadows
that are clearly visible when they shouldn’t be, again
indicating
multiple
light sources; the complete lack of stars in the lunar sky;
identical
backgrounds in photos that NASA has claimed were shot at
different
locations;
and inconsistencies with the crosshair reference marks.
We will look at each of these in some
detail
– well,
actually we will look at most of them in some detail.
Because
as it
turns out – and I know that this will come as a huge
disappointment to
all the
‘debunkers’ – I don’t really give a shit whether the flag is
waving or
not.
Many of the ‘debunking’ websites devote an inordinate amount
of time to
the
issue, as though it were the primary plank on which the
‘conspiracy
theories’
rested. They do this because the videos and photos are
ambiguous and
open to
interpretation, and the ‘debunkers’ realize that people are
going to
see in them
what they want to see.
The truth though is that it does not
matter
in the
least whether the flag is waving. That is just one tiny drop
of
potential
evidence in an overflowing bucket.
Some of the other problems with the
images
are
considerably less ambiguous. But before we even get to those,
we must
first
discuss the fact that the very existence of the photographs is
a
technical
impossibility. Simply stated, it would not have been possible
to
capture any
of the images allegedly shot on the Moon in the manner that
NASA says
they were
captured.
Back in the day, you see (and younger
readers
may
again want to cover their eyes), cameras weren’t all that
smart, so
everything
had to be done manually. The photographer had to manually
focus each
shot by
peering through the viewfinder and rotating the lens until the
scene
came into
focus. The proper aperture and shutter speeds had to be
manually
selected for
each shot as well, to insure a proper exposure. That required
peering
through
the viewfinder as well, to meter the shot. Finally, each shot
had to be
properly composed and framed, which obviously also required
looking
through the
viewfinder.
The problem for the astronauts is
that the
cameras
were mounted to their chests, which made it impossible to see
through
the
viewfinder to meter, frame and focus the shots. Everything,
therefore,
was
pretty much of a guess. Focusing would have been entirely
guesswork, as
would
the framing of each shot. An experienced photographer can
accurately
estimate
the exposure settings, but the astronauts lacked such
experience and
they were
also handicapped by the fact that they were viewing the scenes
through
heavily
tinted visors, which meant that what they were seeing was not
what the
camera
was seeing.
To add to their troubles, they were
wearing
space
helmets that seriously restricted their field of vision, along
with
enormously
bulky, pressurized gloves that severely limited their manual
dexterity.
The
odds then of getting even one of the three elements
(exposure,
focus and
framing) correct under those conditions on any given shot
would have
been
exceedingly low. And yet, amazingly enough, on the
overwhelming
majority of the
photos, they got all three right!
A rather self-important gent by the
name of
Jay
Windley, one of the most prominent of the NASA-approved
‘debunkers,’
attempts
to spin all this away on his website, www.clavius.org.
According to Windley, “The exposures were worked out ahead of
time
based on
experimentation. The ASA/ISO rating of the film was known, and
NASA
photographers
precomputed the necessary exposures … In many cases the camera
settings
for
planned photos were given in the astronauts’ cuff checklists.”
No shit, Jay? Did they send an
advance team
to the
Moon to do that “experimentation”? Because the lighting
conditions on
the Moon
are pretty unique, as you well know, and nobody had ever been
there
before, so
I’m not really seeing how NASA’s photographers were able to
work the
exposures
out “ahead of time.” And what “planned photos” are you
referring to?
How did
they know what they were going to photograph before they even
knew what
was
there? They knew they were going to take photos of each other,
I
suppose, and
of the flag and lander, but they would have had no clue how
those
things were
going to be lit, and it’s the lighting, not the subject, that
primarily
determines the exposure settings.
Windley of course knows that, since
he claims
on his
site that he is “an experienced photographer [who] has worked
professionally in
that area from time to time.” He must also know then that his
comments
about
the unimportance of properly focusing a shot are intentionally
misleading. He
starts off on the right track, more or less, advising readers
that an
increased
depth of field “means that when the lens is set to focus at a
certain
distance,
objects somewhat nearer and farther from this ideal distance
are also
sharply
focused. The narrower the aperture, the greater the depth of
field.”
It is certainly true that the smaller
the
aperture,
the greater the depth of field will be. And the greater the
depth of
field, the
more of the background and foreground will be in focus,
assuming that
the
subject is in proper focus. Windley, like the rest of the
‘debunkers,’
would
like us to believe that all of the photos shot on the lunar
surface
were shot
with a very small aperture setting (which supposedly explains
the lack
of stars
in the lunar sky, but we’ll get to that soon enough), which
would
maximize the
depth of field. And the greater the depth of field, according
to
Windley, “the
sloppier the photographer can be about his focus settings.”
That last statement, for those who
may have
missed
it, is the part that isn’t actually true. An increased depth
of field
most
certainly does not mean that you can use the ‘close enough’
technique
to focus
your camera. Depth of field has nothing to do with whether
your subject
is
sharply focused or not. If your subject is sharply
focused,
then depth
of field determines how many of the other objects in the
background and
foreground of your photo will be in focus as well. If your
subject is
not
sharply focused, however, then your photo is going to suck
regardless
of the
amount of depth of field.
As for framing the shots, Windley
claims that
mostly
wide-angle lenses were used, which meant that, “It was
sufficient to
point the
camera in the general direction of the subject and you would
be likely
to frame
it well enough.” So apparently all the fuss about framing,
exposure and
focus
is much ado about nothing. All you need do is write the
exposure
settings down
on your sleeve, ballpark the focus, and point your camera in
“the
general
direction of the subject” and you’ll get great shots nearly
every time!
Windley then adds (and this is my
favorite
part of
his photography tutorial) that on the later missions, “a 500mm
telephoto lens
was also taken, and the cameras were modified with sighting
rings to
help aim
them. Normally the camera would be mounted on the space suit
chest
bracket, but
for telephoto use the astronaut would have to remove it and
hold it at
eye
level in order to sight down the rings.”
As any photographer knows, getting a
decent
shot
with a 500mm lens without the use of a tripod is a pretty tall
order,
even for
a seasoned professional. Getting a decent hand-held shot with
a 500mm
lens
while wearing bulky, pressurized gloves would be just about
impossible.
And the
notion that you could come anywhere close to properly framing
or
focusing an
image captured with a 500mm lens without looking through the
viewfinder
is
laughably absurd.
The ‘debunkers’ will also tell you
that it is
not
true that all the Moon landing images were keepers, and that
NASA only
released
the best of the photos. The ‘debunkers,’ however, don’t know
what they
are
talking about. The reality is that NASA has released all
of the
alleged
photos taken during the Apollo missions, including
indecipherable ones
that are
labeled “inadvertent shutter release” (which, I have to admit,
is a
nice
touch). With the exception of what are most likely deliberate
mistakes,
the
clear majority of the shots are pretty well composed, exposed
and
focused.
For those who don’t find that at all
unusual,
here
is an experiment that you can try at home: grab the nearest
35MM SLR
camera and
strap it around your neck. It is probably an automatic camera
so you
will have
to set it for manual focus and manual exposure. Now you will
need to
put on the
thickest pair of winter gloves that you can find, as well as a
motorcycle
helmet with a visor. Once you have done all that, here is your
assignment: walk
around your neighborhood with the camera pressed firmly to
your chest
and snap
a bunch of photos. You will need to fiddle with the focus and
exposure
settings, of course, which is going to be a real bitch since
you won’t
be able
to see or feel what you are doing. Also, needless to say,
you’ll just
have to
guess on the framing of all the shots.
You should probably use a digital
camera, by
the
way, so that you don’t waste a lot of film, because you’re not
going to
have a
lot of keepers. Of course, part of the fun of this challenge
is
changing the
film with the gloves and helmet on, and you’ll miss out on
that by
going
digital. Anyway, after you fill up your memory card, head back
home and
download all your newly captured images. While looking through
your
collection of
unimpressive photos, marvel at the incredible awesomeness of
our Apollo
astronauts, who not only risked life and limb to expand man’s
frontiers, but
who were also amazingly talented photographers. I’m more than
a little
surprised that none of them went on to lucrative careers as
professional
shutterbugs.
Even if our fine astronauts could
have
captured all
of those images, the film would have never survived the
journey in such
pristine
condition. Even very brief exposure to the relatively low
levels of
radiation
used in airport security terminals can damage photographic
film, so how
would
the film have fared after prolonged, continuous exposure to
far higher
levels
of radiation? And what of the 540° F temperature fluctuations?
That must have been some amazingly resilient film stock – and
yet
another
example of the lost technology of the 1960s.
Even though the images are clearly
not what
NASA
claims they are, we are going to play along and pretend as
though Neil
and Buzz
and all of the rest of the guys could have actually taken
them. The
question
then is: where did they take them?
Hoax theorists, ‘debunkers’ and NASA
are all
in
agreement on at least one thing: conditions on the surface of
the Moon
are
decidedly different than conditions here on the surface of
planet
Earth. For
one thing, the Moon has no atmosphere. Also, there is only one
source
of light,
which is, of course, the sun (NASA has verified that no other
light
source was
available to the astronauts).
Due to the lack of atmosphere on the
Moon,
light is
not scattered and travels only in a straight line from the sun
and is
reflected
back in the same direction. What that means is that anything
that falls
in the
shadows will be in virtually complete darkness. It also means
that all
shadows
will be cast in the same direction. And it means that the sky
is always
black,
and, with no atmosphere filtering the view, that sky will be
filled at
all
times with a dazzling display of stars unlike anything ever
before seen
by man.
As other skeptics have noted, none of
the
photos
supposedly brought home from the Moon show a single star in
the sky.
‘Debunkers’ have claimed that this is because the exposure
settings on
the
cameras didn’t allow for the stars to be captured on film. In
order to
properly
expose for the objects being photographed, ‘debunkers’ claim,
shutter
speeds
had to be too fast and apertures too small to capture the
stars. And
that
applies, according to the ‘debunkers,’ to every single
photo taken
on the
Moon. Even all the ones that, according to those same
‘debunkers,’
were
improperly exposed!
NASA’s own website has boldly stated
that,
“Astronauts striding across the bright lunar soil in their
sunlit
spacesuits
were literally dazzling. Setting a camera with the proper
exposure for
a
glaring spacesuit would naturally render background stars too
faint to
see.”
The problem with this claim, which
should be
obvious
to any photographer, is that a variety of different
exposure
settings
would have been required to shoot all the photos allegedly
taken on the
Moon
(Windley acknowledged as much when he claimed that NASA
“precomputed
the
necessary exposures”). All of the scenes below, for example,
which are
obviously not very well lit, would have required long
exposures –
exposures
that would have definitely captured the brilliantly shining
stars,
since they
would have been the brightest objects in the camera’s field of
view.
One thing that I love about the
‘debunking’
websites, by the way, is how frequently they contradict
themselves
while
working their way through their ‘debunking’ checklists. The
ever-pompous Phil
Plait, proprietor of the appropriately named BadAstronomy.com
website, is a prime example. Fairly early on in his
‘debunking’ rant,
he writes
as follows: “I’ll say this here now, and return to it many
times: the
Moon is
not the Earth. Conditions there are weird, and our common
sense is
likely to
fail us.”
Plait does indeed return to it often,
whenever it
advances his argument to do so, but he just as frequently
tosses his
own
cardinal rule aside when that is what serves his purposes –
like, for
example,
just four paragraphs later, when he advises readers to “go
outside here
on Earth
on the darkest night imaginable and take a picture with the
exact same camera settings the astronauts used, you won’t see
any
stars! It’s
that simple.”
Ever the coy one, Phil doesn’t tell
us what
those
“camera settings” are, but he clearly implies that the same
settings
were used
in every photo, which clearly is not the case. Phil also
conveniently
forgets
that the view from the Moon is not filtered through an
atmosphere, so
the stars
have many times the luminosity as here on Earth. Phil’s little
experiment,
therefore, is entirely invalid, since he forgot to take into
account
that
conditions on the Moon “are weird.” And as with all the
‘debunkers,’ he
also
forgot to explain why it is that no one thought to expose a
photo or
two to specifically
capture the brilliant display of stars.
Legend holds that a dozen astronauts
walked
upon the
surface of the Moon for varying amounts of time. The Apollo 17
astronauts alone
were purportedly there for three days. For the duration of
their
visits, each
of the twelve would have been treated to what was by far the
most
dazzling
display of stars ever seen by the human eye. What they would
have seen
was many
times more stars burning many times brighter than can be seen
anywhere
here on
planet Earth.
Collectively, the dirty dozen took
thousands
of
photos throughout their alleged journeys. And yet, amazingly
enough,
not one of
them thought it might be a good idea to snap even a single
photograph
of such a
wondrous sight. Of course, endless photos of the lunar modules
and the
monotonous lunar surface are exciting too, but just one or two
photos
of that
dazzling lunar sky might have been nice as well. It’s as if
someone
went to
Now let’s turn our attention to the
subject
of
shadows. As skeptics have noted, some of NASA’s photos seem to
depict
nonparallel shadows, indicating more than one light source.
‘Debunkers’
have
claimed that all such discrepancies can be explained by
“perspective”
and
topographical variations on the surface of the Moon. And truth
be told,
many of
the images that I have seen on websites on both sides of the
aisle are
ambiguous enough that such explanations can be plausibly
argued. But
there are,
as it turns out, images in NASA’s collection that aren’t quite
so easy
to
debunk.
There are, in fact, images that
demonstrate
unequivocally that more than one light source was used. Take,
for
example, the
image below of one of the landing pods of the Apollo 11 lunar
module,
allegedly
parked on the surface of the Moon.
The primary light source,
meant to simulate the sun, is obviously positioned to the
right of the
scene,
as is clearly demonstrated by the shadows of all of the
objects in the
background. But there is just as obviously a secondary light
source
coming from
the direction of the photographer. We know this because we can
see in
the
foreground that the shadows coming off the small ‘Moon rocks’
point
away from us.
We know it also because we can see the light being reflected
off of the
gold
foil wrap onto the ground in front of the pod. But we know it
most of
all
because we can actually see the light reflected in the
foil wrap on
the leg
of the pod!
The shadows in the foreground and in
the
background
are at nearly right angles, a phenomenon that cannot, by any
stretch of
the
imagination, be explained away as a perceptual problem –
especially
when we
can clearly see the reflection of the secondary light!
One other
question
concerning this particular photo: how do you suppose you would
go about
capturing such a low-angle shot with a chest-mounted camera?
Was the
astronaut/photographer standing in a foxhole?
The other issue involving shadows
concerns
the fact
that, in the majority of the photos allegedly taken on the
Moon,
objects lying
in the shadows are clearly visible even though, due to the
Moon’s lack
of
atmosphere and the fact that sunlight therefore does not
scatter, those
shadowed areas should be completely black. The Moon, you see,
is kind
of a
black and white world. If something is in the direct path of
the
unfiltered
sunlight, it should be well lit (on one side); if it’s not, it
should
be as
black as NASA’s starless lunar sky.
The ‘debunkers,’ of course, have an
explanation for
this. Let’s turn once again to BadAstronomy.com
for that explanation, since that seems to be the website that
all the
other
‘debunking’ websites consistently reference and link to, the
one that
all the
major media outlets endorse, and the one that even NASA
apparently
refers
skeptics to. According to the site, “The lunar dust has a
peculiar
property: it
tends to reflect light back in the direction from where it
came.”
In the previously cited example, Plait managed to make it through four entire paragraphs before contradicting himself. Here he has easily shattered that record by, incredibly enough, contradicting himself in back-to-back sentences! And this, keep in kind, seems to be the best ‘debunker’ that NASA has to offer (it is unclear whether Plait is a paid shill or simply a useful idiot; it other words, it is unclear whether he actually believes the stuff he writes or whether he is knowingly lying his ass off, but the latter seems far more likely).
Plait is right on the money when he
says that
the light
falling beyond the LM on the left would be reflected “back
toward the
sun.”
Unfortunately, he then immediately contradicts himself by
claiming that
that
same light would be reflected “to the right,” onto the module.
The only
way
that that could happen, as Plait surely knows, is if the light
were to
shine through
the lander and reflect off the shaded portion of the soil. But
that
makes no
sense, of course, just as Phil’s explanation makes no sense.
Light does not disperse on the Moon,
as Plait
himself notes elsewhere on his website. And the surface of the
Moon (or
at least what passes for the surface of the Moon in NASA's
photos) is
not a very reflective surface, as can be clearly discerned in
the
photographs. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that
the Moon
is a very selectively reflective surface, with the light
choosing to
reflect only on the astronauts and on flags and other
patriotoc symbols.
Not too surprisingly, Plait once
again
invites
readers to reproduce the effect right here at home, completely
ignoring
the
fact that, as he himself has acknowledged, light behaves in
entirely
different
ways here on Earth than it does on the Moon. Plait also claims
that, “A
nifty
demonstration of the shadow filling was done by Ian Goddard
and can be
found here.
His
demos are
great and really drive the
point home.” In truth, Goddard’s “nifty demonstrations” are
entirely
dependent
upon the effects of atmosphere causing the light to disperse,
and thus
they
have no validity whatsoever.
I forgot to mention in the earlier
discussion, by
the way, that Plait also appealed to readers to conduct an
Earth-bound
experiment to ‘debunk’ the diverging shadows conundrum.
According to
Phil, “You
can experience this for yourself; go outside on a clear day
when the
Sun is low
in the sky and compare the direction of the shadows of near
and far
objects.
You’ll see that they appear to diverge. Here is a major claim
of the
HBs that
you can disprove all by yourself!”
Here is another experiment that Plait
might
want to
try himself: go outside during the daytime on any day of your
choosing
and look
up at the sky. If it is absolutely jet black, then feel free
to
continue
advising your readers to conduct Moon simulations here at
home. If it
is blue,
however (or gray, or white, or pretty much any color other
than black),
then
stop pretending as though conditions on the Moon can be
replicated here
on
Earth when we all know better (or we all should).
And when you’re done with that
experiment?
Give the
camera-to-the-chest challenge a try and let everyone know how
well that
works
out for you. And try to get some of those low-angle shots that
NASA
likes.
The truth is that even though a
limited
amount of light would reflect into the shadows, there is still
way too
much
detail visible in the shadows in virtually all of NASA’s
photos – if
the
arguments that NASA and Plait put forth earlier are at all
accurate. As
readers
will recall, the earlier claim was that the lunar surface and
the
astronauts’
spacesuits were so dazzlingly bright in the unfiltered
sunlight that
very fast
shutter speeds and very small apertures were required to avoid
overexposing the
shots.
The problem for NASA and its attack
dogs is
that you
can’t have it both ways. If the camera is stopped down to
avoid
overexposing
extremely bright highlights, it cannot simultaneously capture
full
detail in
the shadows. And if the aperture and shutter speeds are set to
capture
detail
in the shadows, the camera would necessarily also capture the
brilliant
stars,
which would be far brighter than anything lying in the lunar
shadows.
Other
planets would be pretty hard to miss in the lunar sky as well,
though
none can
be seen in any of NASA’s photos.
Do you remember, by the way, what
Windley
told us
earlier about the relationship between the aperture setting
and depth
of field?
The basic rule is that the smaller the aperture setting, the
greater
the depth
of field will be. With a wide aperture, conversely, the photo
will have
little
depth of field. That is why portrait photographers tend to
shoot with
the lens
wide open, to deliberately isolate the subject from foreground
and
background
elements. Landscape photographers, on the other hand, stop the
lens
down to
keep the entire scene in focus.
With that bit of basic photographic
knowledge
in
hand, it is fairly easy to determine whether NASA’s
photographs were,
in fact,
taken with a very small aperture setting. And a good place to
start, I
suppose,
is with the very first photo allegedly taken by a man standing
on lunar
soil.
Below is what is alleged to be Armstrong’s very first attempt
at lunar
photography, just after climbing down from the module.
First off, I think we can all agree
that,
under the
circumstances, it’s a pretty damn good first effort. There are
problems
right
off the bat, of course, with the fact that the shadows are
obviously
lit with a
diffused secondary light source, or else we wouldn’t be able
to see the
top of
the bag, or the United States sign, or the shadowed side of
the landing
strut,
but what we’re really looking for here is depth of field,
which this
photo has
very little of. The photographer has focused on the
Moving on to Armstrong’s second
alleged
photo, seen
below, we again find that there is very little depth of field.
Both the
foreground and the background are quite blurry, indicating
that it
clearly was
not taken with a small aperture setting. And yet there is nary
a star
to be
seen.
Before moving on, there is one more
of
Armstrong’s
photos that I feel obligated to present here. It is, after
all, his
masterpiece, as well as being probably the most iconic of all
the
Apollo
photos. I am talking, of course, about the so-called “Man on
the Moon”
shot of
cohort Buzz Aldrin, seen below (which is probably not actually
Aldrin;
my guess
is that the same two actors did all the Moonwalking in the
videos and
photos
from the alleged missions).
We must first, of course, compliment
Neil on
the
awesome composition. It hardly looks staged at all. But there
are
problems here.
Once again, I’m just not seeing the depth of field that
Windley
promised us.
It’s also pretty hard not to notice that Buzz’s spacesuit
isn’t
pressurized. Furthermore, the surface of the 'Moon' is quite
unevenly
lit, indicating that the light source used was much closer
than the
sun. And then there is the noticeable lack of any shadowing on
Buzz’s
spacesuit.
He’s casting a shadow on the ground, but there is no
corresponding
shadowing of
his body. Even here on Earth, that is only possible with a
secondary
light
source.
There are some photos in NASA’s
collection
that were
taken without a secondary light source, so we do know what
fake Moon
landing
pictures should look like. The action shot below of the lunar
rover,
for
example, was taken without a secondary light to fill in the
shadows.
The
shadows still aren’t quite as dark as they would be on the
Moon, but
the
difference between a fake Moon shot taken with a fill light
and a fake
Moon
shot taken without a fill light couldn’t be more obvious.
NASA liked the “Man on the Moon”
image so
much, by
the way, that they essentially restaged it for the Apollo 12
mission.
As can be
seen below, a secondary light was used for that shot as well.
Without
the fill
light, there is simply no way that a portion of the
astronaut’s
spacesuit would
not be shadowed, as it is in the rover photo above.
Moving on then to the next issue, we
have the
mystery of the disappearing crosshairs. The problem, according
to
skeptics, is
that the crosshair reference marks, which were etched into the
camera’s
lenses
and therefore should always appear on top of any objects in
the photos,
sometimes disappear behind those objects.
Plait actually gets this one correct
in
explaining
the phenomenon as a problem of overexposure and contrast. When
some of
the
brighter objects in the photos are overexposed, the fine
crosshairs
tend to get
washed out. That is in fact a reasonable explanation for the
effect (by
the
way, I mentioned before that I was not a rocket scientist; I
am,
however, a
photographer).
The claim that the crosshairs should
be
visible
presupposes that NASA added objects to the photos, creating
composites.
I
seriously doubt though that that would have happened. The
scenes appear
to have
been very carefully staged before the photos were
taken, so
there would
have been no need for cutting and pasting. And if NASA had
planned on
adding
additional elements to the photos, I doubt that they would
have
complicated
that process by using cameras with crosshairs; it would have
been much
easier
to create the composites first and then overlay the grid marks
on top
of them.
However … the same can certainly not
be said
of the
images that purport to show various parts of the ship flying
through
space.
Take the image below, for example, which is supposed to be a
two-dimensional
rendering of a three-dimensional scene of the command and
service
modules in
lunar orbit. If it were an actual three-dimensional scene, the
spaceship would
be 69 miles above the lunar surface – which would, I would
think, make
it
difficult for a portion of that lunar terrain to obscure part
of the
ship’s
S-band antennae assembly.
The shot, as can be seen in the
enlargement
below,
is clearly a composite. And not even a very good one. So it is
entirely
possible that some of the photos allegedly shot on the
Moon are
composites as well. I obviously haven’t studied every one of
them. I’m
just
saying that the ones that I have seen that have disappearing
crosshairs
do not
appear to be composites.
The next problem with the NASA photos
is that
some
of them seem to have identical backgrounds but different
foregrounds.
As Phil
Plait explains, “In one [photo], they show the lunar lander
with a
mountain in
the background. They then show another picture of the same
mountain,
but no
lander in the foreground at all. The astronauts could not have
taken
either
picture before landing, of course, and after it lifts off the
lander
leaves the
bottom section behind. Therefore, there would have been
something in
the second
image no matter what, and the foreground could not be empty.”
Plait begins his debunking by
stating, rather
hilariously: “As always, repeat after me: the Moon is not the
Earth.”
Plait
goes on to claim that distances are very difficult to judge on
the Moon
and
that the two photographs were actually taken from much
different
angles, and
yet the background remains virtually unchanged because,
despite
appearances, it
is a really, really long ways away. Either that, or one of the
astronauts was
really David Copperfield.
The two photographs appear below.
I’ll leave
it to
readers to decide whether, as Plait claims, the ‘mountains’
are in fact
many,
many times further away from the lander than the lander is
from the
photographer. And I’ll do so while noting that Phil provides
neither
the
photographs nor a link to them, but instead asks readers to
accept what
he says
on faith. I wonder why he would do that if he were so sure of
his
conclusions? I also wonder why, in the final photo, the lander
appears
to be parked much closer to the 'mountains' than Plait would
have us
believe.
